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Published: June 21st 2006
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Valley
Lunch in a beautiful valley close to the beginning of the trek Well we met our trek guide on the 7th June in Cuzco to go over a few important points about the trek, and to get to know him. We packed only the essentials that we needed for the trek, and the next morning took a 3 hour minibus journey to the start of the trail, stopping off on the way in a small village where the cook could buy some meat for the trek. We also took the opportunity to buy some bamboo walking sticks to help us on the trek. After leaving the village we continued towards the start of the trek, but not before stopping off for some lunch at the bottom of a passing stream in a valley.
After lunch we went to the beginning of the trek, only another 20 minutes drive away. We crossed a large bridge above the river Urubamba and began the trail. On the first day we only walked for about 4 hours before reaching our campsite, which we were told was to be the best of the 3 we were staying at. The campsite was next to an abandoned local school and we camped on the football pitch. We took the opportunity to learn a few Quechuan words so we could at least say something to the locals and our porters. On the walls of the classroom were some picstures with words underneath them so we knew what the words meant. We could say ´úchu´which meant chilli so we could ask for more spicy food, ´killa´which was full moon´aswell as a few others which came into use. The view we had from our campsite was amazing and gave us just a glimpse of what was to come. We had our first dinner at 6pm which was when we first realised how good our cook, Roger was. Throughout the trek he made us such delicious food not one of us complained. After eating in our dinner tent David, our guide introduced us to a local game called ambitious. It was a dice game which was purely a luck game but entertained us for ages, especially as our guide got a little drunk after a few glasses of wine. We played this every night as it was something to do before we went to bed. the first night we were shocked to find out that bedtime was soon after the sun went down, at about 8pm! On the first night we didn´t think we could sleep so early so decided to walk into the small village nearby with our flashlights. We were surprised that absolutely nobody was to be seen, but we were soon told by our guide why this was so - at night the only activities the locals enjoyed were eating, having sex and then sleeping! However we did meet locals during the days whilst trekking. On the first day we came across a small boy maybe 4-5 years old stood hidden behind a rock wall looking curious and intimidated. We took out a small wrapped up sweet and gave it to him, and he proceeded to eat it with the wrapper on. We asked for it back and unwrapped it slightly, and then passed it back. This time he ate the sweet, and then he ate the wrapper. Generally the Incas are an incredible people who do not work on the principles of a 24hr clock. They sleep when the sun goes down, and wake up when the sun rises or when the rooster decides its time. They are extremely friendly, and from what we´ve been told, the most trustworthy people. Anyway, when we were ready to go to sleep, there was a shack close by to our tents and I could have sworn someone was watching X-Files. It was kinda surprising because these people live in houses made of mud blocks and stones, are extremely poor and lack electricity.
The next day we woke up at 5.00 am and after breakfast headed for our second campsite. We walked for 12 km on what was to be the most challegning part of the trek, as it was mostly uphill and partly through a muddy forest.
After a steep climb we came across our cook and porters sat along a long table cooking us lunch. Again, we had lunch by an amazing view and then after stuffing ourselves had our siestas for a while before carrying on with the trek. We arrived at our second campsite after climbing up steep steps through a jungle being followed by 4 seriously pissed off Llamas. They made it pretty obvious they didn´t want any pictures taken of them by chasing us up the steps.
We had an amazing second campsite, although the porters decided to put our tents up about 30cm from the edge of a cliff. But waking up and stepping out of our tents to an even better view than we had seen before was definately worth it. We decided to make up a new game while we were waiting for dinner so we could get to know some of the porters better. It was quite a simple game of throwing a tennis ball in between an ever decreasing gap between 2 rocks. One of the porters, Mr Claudioooo, seemed to be quite a natural at it though!
The next morning we headed off on what our guide told us was the hardest days trek (another one!?). As we climbed to the highest point on the trail, the so called Dead woman´s pass´, all we could think about was reaching the top and of course England´s opening game that we were missing. Luckily Nik saw a porter from another group carrying a radio so decided to walk directly behind him the entire way up! Max heard a loud shout of ´Englaaaand!´ coming from the mountains and soon realised England were infront. Soon after, we reached the highest pass.
We walked for another six hours including a stop for lunch until we reached our final campsite. Most of this walk was along a narrow path through a jungle along the edge of a mountain, with clouds right next to us.
Our final campsite was well worth the wait, as it had the best views of all the campsites. David took us to a point where he usually comes to see sunset, and on this night there was also a full moon. We waited for about an hour eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate until the sun slowly faded beneath the horizon.
The next morning was the last time with our porters, so we took a group photo and said our goodbyes.
We then left for Machu Picchu, taking the original inca route as opposed to the more common 3000 steps taken by most of the groups.
We got our first glimpse of Machu Picchu at the Temple of the Sun, where we just stood for half an hour taking in the view. We carried on for another half hour until we finally reached the site, where hundreds of other tourists were gathered from all parts of the world to see the ancient ruins.
We took a bus down to Aguas Calientes where we stayed the night and the next morning we explored the Inca ruins. As we didn´t have a tour guide we decided to use our imaginations as best we could, probably giving the Incans a bit too much credit, presuming some of the rooms were spas, bakeries and even social clubs. We were probably wrong...
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Dharms
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Hey!!! You two look like your having a great time!!!...looks awesome!! keep the messages coming lol. take care Dharms